


A Minor Mistake

by JulisCaesar



Category: Doctor Who (1963), Doctor Who (2005), Doctor Who (Big Finish Audio), Gallifrey (Big Finish Audio)
Genre: F/F, M/M, Series 9 spoilers, there's a throwaway line of dialogue and then i wrote a fic, vaguely
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-20
Updated: 2015-09-20
Packaged: 2018-04-22 15:00:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,165
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4839800
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JulisCaesar/pseuds/JulisCaesar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>One of the President's duties is dealing with renegades. Romana just wishes she didn't have to deal with this particular pair.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Minor Mistake

**Author's Note:**

> [We've been friends] since the night he stole the moon and the President's wife. (The Master, The Magician's Apprentice)

Romana taps her anachronistic-but-handy pen against her desk and looks at the Time Lord on the other side.

The Master makes a vain attempt at looking innocent and settles for sulky instead. “You can’t hold me.”

Romana raises an eyebrow. “Legally or physically? I assure you, I can do both.”

The Master doesn’t squirm but his mental touch tries to.

“You have been arrested for,” she checks her files, “unauthorized interference in a planet’s history to such an extreme degree that my CIA agents are still out there trying to fix it.”

The Master, somehow, looks less innocent. “Oops.”

Romana puts the pad down. “Don’t you usually clean up these messes before we get to them?” _You_ here refers to the Doctor and the Master; _we_ is the Time Lords en masse.

There’s a long pause during which the Master attempts to put up mental shields strong enough to keep her out. “The Doctor usually does,” he says finally.

Both of Romana’s eyebrows go up.

The Master slouches in his chair. He’s wearing a brand-new set of Prydonian robes and looks immensely uncomfortable in them. “What do you want from me?”

“I would _like_ you to stop interfering, but I doubt that will happen.” She leans forward. “I need you to—”

Her carefully thought-out plan gets cut off by the Panopticon shaking, hard enough to topple some of the more decorative paperweights from her desk. She and the Master look at each other. Gallifrey is occasionally prone to tremors, but usually she gets a warning from the APC net. This was evidentially not natural, but nor was it an attack—she would have gotten an alert for that too.

Further speculation on the quake is halted by loud ringing coming from her desk console. She stares at it for a second. Romana is fully aware that her console is not programmed to make that noise, which honestly tells her all she needs to know about the caller.

Smirking, the Master straightens. “Go ahead, answer. They’ll keep calling until you do.”

She glares at him, but answers anyway. No point in asking how he knows.

“Hiiii,” the Doctor says through the console. “I seem to have made a few mistakes, um, could use a little help possibly.”

Romana pinches the bridge of her nose. “Hello, Doctor.”

The Master looks like he very badly wants to say something, but goes back to sulking when Romana glares at him.

“Yes, I may have done… something.”

The Master snickers.

Romana does her level best to ignore him and looks at the console. “Does this something have anything to do with the quake that just disrupted the Capitol?”

There’s a long pause, and Romana wishes for a video link. Alas, it’s the Doctor, and for all her console is capable of video links, the Doctor’s TARDIS is not. “It’s possible I materialized my TARDIS around Pazithi Gallifreya.”

Biting her lip, Romana stares at the ceiling. “It’s possible?”

“It is my turn to talk,” someone else says, and Romana goes very stiff. “Romana? I have run off with the Doctor again, but this time it was a real accident and not a plan to leave, and now the Doctor says he cannot take me back because he cannot pilot his TARDIS. But he _could_ pilot the TARDIS, Romana, please explain this.”

The Master is giggling audibly.

Romana sighs. “Oh do shut up.”

“ _Romana_!” Leela says, obviously offended.

“Not you,” Romana says quickly. “There is someone else in the room with me, and he’s making a nuisance of himself.”

The Master pulls a face at her.

Leela makes a huffing noise but doesn’t otherwise respond.

Romana taps her pen again and weighs options. “Leela, listen to me. I’m going to send someone to you who can help the Doctor with the problems they are so clearly having with their TARDIS.”

“Narvin?” Leela says hopefully.

Romana looks over her desk at the Master, who does his best to look abashed. “Narvin is busy right now. No, it’s not anyone you’ve met.” Or so she devoutly hopes.

The Master, occasionally incompetent but never dim, picks up on the direction of the conversation.

Ignoring him, Romana says, “Leela please, _please_ do not let the Doctor fly off before someone reaches you. Can you do that?”

“Yes, Romana,” Leela says solemnly, and with a touch of sarcasm. “I think—”

“Hello, yes, my turn now,” the Doctor cuts in. “What’s this about sending someone? Who? Not Brax, surely.”

Romana looks up at the ceiling. “You’ll find out when they get there,” she says, and hangs up.

The Master is smirking again. He does it rather well this regeneration. “Were you suggesting what I think you were suggesting?”

“Probably,” she says flatly. “I’m going to cut you a deal.”

He leans back smugly. “I’m listening.”

“First, get my moon back.”

The Master crosses his arms. “Not your wife?”

Romana ignores that completely. “Then attach yourself to the Doctor like the limpet you are capable of being, and keep them away from Gallifrey for the next few spans.”

“Ah-hah,” he says, and his mind sharpens. “Up to something, are you?”

“Many things,” she grits out. “Very few of them involving you.”

He smiles entirely falsely. “Very few of them that you want the Doctor involved in.”

She frowns at him. Fortunately, the Master is self-aware enough not to need physical bonds. All she needs to do is twitch the edges of the Matrix and he remembers that she’s the President. Unlike some renegades she could name.

The Master leans forward. “What’s in it for me?”

“The return of your TARDIS and a Presidential pardon for this _latest_ crime.”

He visibly perks up. No Time Lord with a bonded TARDIS likes to be away from it for long, and she has used that to her advantage. Irrepressible, he says, “Not a blanket pardon?”

She gives him a flat look. “You would need to be considerably more impressive.”

“And what if distracting the Doctor results in more instances of interference?”

Romana smiles. “Don’t get caught.”

She can feel him accepting even before he nods. “Done.”

She marks the deal in the Matrix and seals it herself. No need for Narvin to get involved in this.

Not—quite—smiling, the Master stands and heads for the door. Just before he reaches it, Romana clears her throat.

“And Master?”

He would make a comment, she can feel, but she is deliberately broadcasting all of the undertones in that, so he turns and waits.

“If you don’t bring back my moon and Leela, Irving Braxiatel is _not_ busy.”

He gets her point. Of course he does. “I don’t need _his_ help,” he sneers, because she can count on the Master to continue bluffing when he’s been outmanoeuvred.

She gives him a very polite smile. “Of course you don’t.”

The Master leaves, no doubt straight for his TARDIS, and she settles back in her chair. Job well done—until the next crisis erupts, at least.


End file.
